The splendid Presidential pilot, Colonel Ralph Albertazzie, had just let down Air Force One to 15,000 feet when he saw four Soviet-built MiGs approaching, two on each side of the aircraft. One does not become pilot of Air Force One without a healthy dose of self-confidence in one’s flying ability. He decided not to find out whether they were an honor guard or some rogue radical air force unit. Putting his heavy plane into a steep bank, he maneuvered to throw off the escort — an improbability for a Boeing 707 to execute against modern fighter planes. Unfortunately, it also threw the passengers on Air Force One about a bit. So imbued were the civilians on the plane with the notion that Air Force One was invulnerable, however, that no excessive attention was paid. But one look at Brent Scowcroft — a Lieutenant General of the US Air Force — taught me otherwise. He was clearly shaken; hence we were obviously in danger. Larry Eagleburger showed the impenetrable sangfroid of the Foreign Service. He had been writing me a note about protocol details when Scowcroft’s pallor caused him to add a word of caution. He had got as far as to write: “You will get off the plane right behind Mrs. Nixon.” He simply added the two words “I hope” and silently handed me the note.
In the event, the Syrian pilots must have decided that the stunt-flying of Air Force One was some demented American reciprocal honor. They doggedly kept up with us. Never was an American delegation happier to reach Damascus than on this occasion.
Asad had arranged an all-military arrival ceremony of dignified aloofness. There were no crowds at the airport, whose distance from the city does not in any event lend itself to mass demonstrations. But there were large and friendly crowds as Nixon and Asad rode through the streets of Damascus at a speed designed to discourage both assassins and demonstrations. As an added security measure, the route of the motorcade had not been published, though I suspect the population knew that the available options were severely limited. Given these inhibitions, the public response in Syria was remarkably warm. The long period of estrangement between the two countries seemed to be over. Foreign Minister Khaddam and I rode together chatting about our adventures during the shuttle. Although he would have resented the comparison, he made almost the same joke as Eban had when I left Israel two weeks earlier: “After you left, it was like a vacuum in our lives, because it seemed like there was nothing to do!”
Asad had set the stage well. In the previous issue of Newsweek, Asad had given an interview to Arnaud de Borchgrave.6 By Syrian standards it was conciliatory. It paid tribute to my contribution to the disengagement negotiations (“It could not have been done without him”). It affirmed Syria’s desire for a “real peace in the Middle East,” in the interest of “every country” of the area, in the context of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which Syria had only recently recognized. While implying that there were still differences with the United States about what the resolutions meant, Asad seemed to give us the central role in achieving peace; significantly, he did not mention either Gromyko or the Soviet Union. He refused to commit himself to the idea of a Palestinian state, leaving the decision up to the PLO. De Borchgrave saw the opportunity to put Asad on the spot: “Even if the decision is to dismantle the state of Israel?” Asad’s response was significant: “I would imagine that what the PLO decides will not exceed the spirit of UN resolutions. And these do not call for the dismantling of Israel.” It was a deft way for Syria to declare its acceptance of the State of Israel and to inform the PLO that its demand for the destruction of Israel was incompatible with the negotiating process as well as with UN resolutions that Syria recently accepted.
This took no little courage. Syria’s government seemed to have decided to explore the peace process even though its public had been fed for decades on a rhetoric of intransigence and many political groups within Syria, from the left wing of the Baath party to radical Palestinians, were violently opposed to negotiation with Israel and rapprochement with the United States. My experience during the shuttle had convinced me that Asad’s relatively conciliatory course would have to be wrung, day after day, from a reluctant leadership — especially on the civilian side. There seemed to be a pervasive fear that in the end Syria would be betrayed by Arab allies making separate arrangements or by superpowers getting tired of their exertions.
For these reasons, Asad in talking with Nixon on Sunday morning, June 16, was not content with a general philosophical framework as Sadat had been, or with an atmosphere of personal goodwill as had been the case with Faisal. He needed both reinsurance against his radical critics and reassurance about his Arab allies. He was far too Syrian to accept bromides and far too intelligent not to understand evasions. So his meeting with Nixon turned into a cross-examination of our interpretation of appropriate UN resolutions and a probing for the precise goals of our policy — a policy that sustained itself precisely by avoiding precision as to ultimate goals.
During the May shuttle, Asad had repeatedly asked me for a written assurance that we would support Syrian demands to regain all the Golan Heights. I had evaded it. Asad now returned to the charge with Nixon, who was emotionally never comfortable with a style that sought to close off intellectual escape routes.
Nixon started in his usual elliptical way, implying that he agreed with Asad’s objectives but that it would be self-defeating to avow them. At the same time he affirmed his commitment to the survival of Israel. He chose an unfortunate metaphor:
It would be pleasing if I engaged in rhetoric about what will be achieved. But this would start an international debate about the ultimate steps, and no more important steps would be possible. Let me give an example. If you want to push a man off a cliff, you say to him take just one step backward, then another and another. If he knew where he was going, he would take no steps. . . .
If I say what is in the back of my mind, this will destroy the chances and the result will be a return to a military approach which has not worked in 25 years. This is the only reason we want to keep the language of our statements general.
Normally these generalities, delivered with the air of a man imparting a profound confidence, worked. Either Nixon’s interlocutor would be embarrassed to admit that he did not fully understand what the President was talking about, especially as he was being invited to share a deep mystery, or he would think it inappropriate to press the American Chief Executive. Some statesmen probably understood the game that was being played very well and decided on discretion as the better part of valor. Asad did not fit into any of these categories. His domestic position was too precarious to enable him to be polite and his rapprochement with the United States was too recent to serve as a restraint.
At first, things went well enough. Asad fell in with the polite and philosophical chitchat; it turned out to be largely a device to maintain a cordial atmosphere for the appearance of the two Presidents at 12:45 P.M., before a pool of journalists assembled on the steps of the Presidential Palace to announce the resumption of relations between Syria and the United States.
But after they had made the announcement, the two Presidents returned to Asad’s study where Asad made an all-out effort to put meat on the bones of Nixon’s generalities. Before the meeting with the press he had professed himself satisfied with our approach to détente, revealing at the same time that the subject inspired contradictory feelings in the nonaligned whatever their protestations to the contrary: While détente lessened the risk of confrontation, Asad said, it should not be pursued at the expense of small countries. He also did not dispute that the step-by-step approach should be continued. What he wanted to know with some precision was at what stage and how it would include Syria. This led him to raise a whole series of penetrating questions about our future negotiating strategy: Even if a compromise move was difficult all at once, was the United States nevertheless prepared to see Resolution 338 carried out in full? Did the United States object to Syria’s pursuing all the elements of Resolution 338? Did our step-by-step approach mean pursuing only one subject at a time? Would we focus on all borders at
once, or one at a time? Did we envisage that Israel would vacate the Golan Heights when it vacated the Sinai? And finally — permitting no evasion — how did the United States see the future, final borders of Israel?
There was nothing Nixon hated more than this type of cross-examination. I tried to gain him some time — fortunately, we had to leave by 2:30 to make our scheduled arrival in Israel — by explaining what was bothering Asad: “President Asad believes we have already reached agreement with Egypt [on final borders]. That is not true. . . . We have had only general talks with Sadat on this question.” But fundamentally, Nixon was on his own in the sort of direct confrontation that he abhorred. Nixon equivocated as much as possible; he put his refusal to be explicit as much on tactical grounds as he could. But in the end he edged ever closer to endorsing Asad’s position on frontiers. Asad, unfamiliar with my chief’s method of operation, would not have been far off the mark if he distilled from the conversation the idea that Nixon, in his own elliptical way, was agreeing to total Israeli withdrawal from the Golan.
I did not think it was in anybody’s interest to leave illusions about what had been agreed. On the way to the airport Khaddam allowed that the negotiations had been, if anything, too easy. I warned:
You are sophisticated. You will not draw too sweeping conclusions. Seriously, Mr. Foreign Minister. Today we can promise anything. I don’t want to promise anything we can’t deliver. In the final stage, when the difference is very small, then we can talk realistically about what final borders are possible.
And on the rest of our journey to the airport, the prickly nationalist Khaddam and I mused about the personal ties that had been established between us and the confidence that was developing between our leaderships.
Much has happened since to throw our two countries into opposition to each other, and to some Syria appears once again as a Soviet satellite. I have my doubts. It was not my impression then when I dealt with the Syrians almost daily. Whether there is a solution to their conflict with Israel can be tested only in the crucible of an actual negotiation. This seems unlikely as I write. But no one would have thought a negotiation possible at the beginning of the disengagement process in 1973. I hope that the lines of communication may open up again between America and that proud, difficult, fiercely nationalistic people.
The welcome in Israel on the afternoon of June 16 had a different texture from those at all other stops. Israel was our friend and ally; we had stood together through grave crises; yet it was the first visit of an American President to that country, so anguished by its ostracism, so reluctant to admit it. It was an emotional experience for both sides. For there was a noticeable undercurrent of uneasiness in the rather too strident insistence on our historic and permanent friendship. Everywhere else the leaders wanted to commit America to maintain, and if possible to accelerate, the peace process. In Israel, a new government sought a respite above all. It was anxious about where the current course would lead, how peace would be defined, and perhaps even more about the domestic controversies it would encounter on the way. Israel’s leaders were insecure about the diplomatic revolution that had lured Nixon into the area in the first place. If truth serum had been administered and the distinguished Israeli assemblage had bared their subconscious, they would probably have preferred to forgo the Presidential visit if it had been possible to undo the sequence of events that brought it about. Nixon in turn was determined that negotiations must continue, and he found himself in the only country of his journey where the peace process seemed to require justification. The atmosphere of potential strain — which neither side was willing to admit, much less to face up to — translated itself into a reception that Nixon correctly described in his autobiography: “Our reception in Israel, although warm by ordinary standards, was the most restrained of the trip.”7
That is why, too, the official toasts had more hidden meanings and the meetings more substance than those on any other part of the trip. On State occasions the President, Ephraim Katzir — speaking on behalf of the cabinet — consistently affirmed the indissoluble bond between Israel and the United States and our hosts’ deep gratitude for Nixon’s role in arranging for aid to Israel. The implication was that the traditional pattern was its own justification, needing no modification. Nixon took precisely the opposite line. He stressed his willingness to continue long-term economic and military aid. But he added a muted warning that in return he expected Israeli flexibility at the conference table. At the arrival ceremony, he expressed his appreciation for the understanding shown by the people of Israel for the purpose of his visit to their traditional adversaries — which came close to rubbing it in. At the State dinner — also extemporaneously — he expanded on the theme of the need for Israeli diplomatic flexibility.
Yitzhak Rabin had just taken over as head of government. Nixon had known him as Ambassador to Washington and thought very highly of him. He now dilated on the new Prime Minister’s qualities, praising his background as a military leader and then offering the advice that there were two roads open to him: that of the politician taking no chances or that of the statesman prepared to run risks for peace. Nixon left no doubt that he was urging the latter approach, which he defined as follows:
It is a way that recognizes that continuous war in this area is not a solution for Israel’s survival and, above all, it is not right — that every possible avenue be explored to avoid it in the interest of the future of those children we saw by the hundreds and thousands on the streets of Jerusalem today.
And Nixon made the same point even more emphatically in his meeting with Rabin and his principal colleagues, Foreign Minister Yigal Allon, Defense Minister Shimon Peres, and Ambassador Simcha Dinitz:
We really feel that the days when Israel felt very comfortable with a relationship with the United States, where we supported Israel, we were going to be Israel’s best friend and where your immediate, more warlike neighbors, Syria and Egypt, were considered to be the enemies of the United States; those days — some might say in this country and many of our very good friends in the Jewish community in the United States say it now: Let’s go back to the old days. Just give us the arms and we can lick all of our enemies and all of the rest.
I don’t think that’s a policy. I don’t think it is viable for the future . . . time will run out.
Fundamentally, there was no dispute about the desirability of peace. But so soon after the two disengagement accords, we emphasized momentum, while Israel feared losing control to a negotiating process that threatened to become its own purpose. Rabin outlined Israel’s approach: Peace had to be related to security; the peace process would take time because to be meaningful it must involve a change in attitudes; it could not consist simply of a series of Israeli withdrawals; there had to be reciprocity; Israel would not tolerate terrorist attacks; it was essential that Israel’s strength be maintained; he hoped the United States would improve its ties to the Arabs at a “moderate” pace and emphasize economic, not military, assistance.
These points were unexceptionable, but in fact laid bare the diplomatic bedrock, which was that we lacked an agreed US–Israeli answer to the kind of questions Asad had posed to us in Damascus: What concrete steps should be taken? How were they going to be accomplished?
Four broad strategic options presented themselves. We could stay with the status quo that had emerged from the two disengagement agreements; we could return to Geneva for a comprehensive solution; we could make another move with Egypt; or we could take an initial step with Jordan on the West Bank.
The option of staying put did not really exist. It would undermine the American position in all Arab countries and lead in time to another blowup. The comprehensive approach was in our view still premature. It would bring the Soviets back into the area; it would raise a whole host of issues where no solution was even vaguely perceived; it would risk an explosion while Nixon was heading for impeachment and a new government with only a single-vote margin had come into office in Israel; moreov
er, Egypt was reluctant to go to Geneva. In any event, it would lead to an early impasse and a braking if not a reversal of the diplomatic process.
The real choice was between taking another step in the Sinai and pursuing a disengagement agreement with Jordan. Sadat had urged us to give priority to the Egyptian front. He was eager to press on toward the peace treaty that he alone of the participants in the process thought attainable.
My own view was that we should make the next move with Jordan. In many ways, the decision in the summer of 1974 to delay Jordan and the West Bank issue until after our domestic crisis was resolved turned out to be crucial; it affected profoundly the evolution of the entire area. It was an amalgam of American, Israeli, and Arab domestic politics and inhibitions in which each party for different reasons took the path of least resistance and brought about the worst possible outcome.
I had thought that everybody’s interest would be served best by establishing as rapidly as possible a Jordanian presence on the West Bank. This would make moderate Jordan the negotiator for the Palestinian phase of the peace process. More and more bystanders — European governments, American intellectuals — were putting forward the PLO as the fashionable key to unlock the West Bank. I was sure that it would bolt the door to a settlement. Simply to get Israel into a conference room with a group that had sworn its destruction and conducted a decade-long terrorist campaign against it would be a monumental assignment, consuming energy, emotion, and enormous amounts of time during which all future progress would be frozen. I did not think it was achievable without demonstrating to Israel brutally and irrevocably its total dependence on American support. In my view, this would break Israel’s back psychologically and destroy the essence of the state. It would also be against America’s interest — not least of all because a demoralized Israel would be simultaneously more in need of American protection and less receptive to our advice. We would be involved as guarantor in every border skirmish, in the long run mortgaging our relations with every state in the area. And even if my judgment was wrong and a psychologically undamaged Israel could be brought into the conference room with the PLO, it would be the beginning of a negotiating nightmare, not the end of it.
Years of Upheaval Page 167